1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of viewer interfaces, and more particularly to viewer interfaces for accessing multimedia databases.
2. Description of the Background Art
Continuing advances in computer based information storage, retrieval, and telecommunication technologies promise to make large-scale multimedia databases available to a broad spectrum of consumers. Until recently, commercially available databases were limited to providing access to textual information. Now information providers can store and retrieve for online users graphic images, and current developments will enable the storage and retrieval of video and audio data in real time from large collections of such works. Additionally, improvements in telecommunications will enable such databases to be accessed by an ever increasing number and variety of users through computers or televisions connected to the databases of information providers. Database vendors will need to provide viewer interfaces for such multimedia databases that enable consumers to rapidly and efficiently access specific products or services, such as motion pictures, news articles, audio recording, entertainment items, or the like, that are stored in the database. The design of such viewer interfaces requires addressing a number of issues relating to viewer behavior, database size, and system constraints.
User behavior in accessing large databases can be described as falling into one of two categories: "searching" or "browsing." A viewer's behavior typically changes depending on the viewer's mood and perception of the information space--the amount and organization of information in the database--the system's response characteristics, and many other variables. All users demonstrate both kinds of behavior at various times.
Searching involves attempting to locate a specific item, such as the movie "Rear Window," or a specific product, for example, a red plaid medium sized shirt from L. L. Bean, typically by specifically identifying the item of interest. Browsing, by contrast, involves the exploration of various categories of information, such as movies in the "Drama" category or types of casual clothing. Conventional viewer interfaces tend to support a preferred mode of accessing records, either through searching or browsing, which limits the flexibility and adaptability to various users and viewer behaviors. A flexible user interface for a multimedia database should enable efficient searching and browsing, or any combination of behaviors at any time, rather than forcing the viewer to use on approach over the other.
The first class of problems in designing viewer interfaces for efficient browsing results from the sheer size of current and future multimedia databases. Databases providing movies, audio recordings, and new items are likely to have tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of records in various categories. A user interface should therefore provide for an efficient way to sift through these records in order to locate a specific record in a timely manner.
One method commonly used in viewer interfaces for browsing are hierarchical menus, which are typically text based, but also can be iconographic. Hierarchical systems in general are an efficient way of organizing many records, because they partition the information space of the database into discrete and meaningful segments. Typically, the database is hierarchically arranged into various topical areas, with numerous subtopics, and related records.
However, typical hierarchical menus require the viewer to repeatedly input or select sequential text strings or icons to go "deeper" into the various levels of the database in search of the desired record. Conventionally, only one level of the hierarchy is available to the viewer at any given time, from which the viewer selects one of a number of presented items in order to access the next level of the database. Since the viewer can select only from the choices that are available in the current level of the database, and since only one level is available at a time, conventional browsing can be taxing for the novice viewer who must make guesses about where in the hierarchy a desired record or type of record resides. The viewer has no way of knowing what records reside in the lowest levels of the database without actually selecting a menu and traversing to the lower level menus. This is true even with iconographic menus, which generally show only icons for one level of the database at any given time.
Assume, for example, a database offering various entertainment services, including movies from various providers, and in numerous categories. A typical viewer may be interested in browsing for a movie to watch, but does not have a particular movie genre in mind. In a conventional interface, if the viewer is at a menu of movie genres, such as "Westerns," "Horror," "Drama", "Science Fiction," and the like, the viewer typically has no information about what specific movies are included in each category. Thus the viewer has to select "Drama" to get a list of movie titles. Typically, little or any information about individual movies is provided. If the list does not contain anything of interest, the viewer has to move back up to the genre menu, and proceed to the next category. This repeated selection process can be very time consuming for extremely large databases, thereby inhibiting exploration, and thus use of the database, and leading to viewer dissatisfaction.
The above example illustrates some of the problems with conventional hierarchical menu interfaces. The viewer must learn the structure of the database either by reviewing printed codes or repeated usage. In the latter case, the viewer's knowledge is limited to an understanding of only the various branches of the hierarchy the viewer has previously explored. Further, the active involvement required to make the repeated selections or inputs can be fundamentally foreign to certain groups of users. Television viewers typically prefer a passive relationship to their content source (e.g. TV programs), where only very limited active searching by the viewer is necessary. Such users typically will not invest the effort necessary to explore and use a conventional database using hierarchical menus.
Another significant problem is the "depth," or number of levels, with which it is necessary to organize very large databases, even where the records are organized by one or more criteria. The depth of the database compounds the repeated selection problem, further impeding browsing by the viewer. A related problem is heterogeny of data. In today's large multimedia databases, media types may vary from text and static graphics, to full color photographs, computer animations, full motion video, and stereo quality audio, with all possible permutations. Conventional text based hierarchical menus cannot adequately represent or describe the various types of media found in large multimedia databases, limiting the viewer's understanding of the available content, and impeding exploration of the database.
User interfaces designed for searching also encounter various problems when applied to multimedia databases. Again, the large number of records in such databases can make it difficult to precisely and quickly locate a particular record. Searching generally requires alphanumeric input capabilities in order to allow the viewer to precisely identify the item of interest. Alphanumeric input requires specific input devices, either keyboards, mice, or the like, which limits the accessibility of the database to users with the required components, and thus prevents use by those potential users who do not already possess the required hardware. While keyboard based interfaces allow rapid text entry, they limit the application of the interface to computer based systems. Iconographic interfaces that provide simulated keyboards, with either alphabetical letter strings, or pictographic typewriters are very slow and error prone, severely hampering text entry. In addition, efficient searching requires the ability to concatenate searches, for example, performing a first search for all movies, and then all Hitchcock films, and finally selecting the movie "Rear Window" from a list of Hitchcock films. Thus systems that require a specific designation of a record do not satisfy the needs of viewer to incrementally narrow a search set to locate a specific item.
An additional concern of both searching and browsing interfaces, is that regardless of the depth or breadth of the database, it should be possible for the viewer to place records at viewer-determined positions so that the viewer can organize information within the database to facilitate immediate access to frequently used data. Conventional interfaces offer little customization by the viewer, at best, allowing the viewer to save previous search results, or simple preferences. Further, to the extent that conventional interfaces allow customization, they do so using a distinct set of commands and operations that are typically unrelated to the actual commands for accessing the database. That is, the user must learn one set of operations for retrieving records from the database, and a separate set of commands for customizing the interface. This increases the apparent complexity of the interface to the user, requiring the user to invest a greater effort to learn the various commands, and thereby discouraging the passive, casual user from customizing the interface.
In conventional databases that provide records of different types, the sets of data associated with various categories, or data types may have differing levels of granularity. Thus where it is meaningful to organize the records of one data type into five hierarchical levels, for example, it may be meaningful to organize another data set into only two levels. Conventional databases provide no standard mechanism that is independent of the actual data, for accommodating these differing levels of granularity in a manner transparent to the viewer. Rather, where there is a high level of granularity, the viewer typically must make numerous selections to narrow the data set to identify a desired record.
There are various other concerns that must be addressed during the design of a user interface. Given the breadth of potential users with different hardware, such as computers or televisions, there is a very limited ability to rely on the use of specific input devices for operating the user interface. Conventional viewer interfaces for databases generally require a computer, and either a keyboard for text input, a mouse for iconographic input, or both. These components are still found in only a small number of homes, and even there, are fixed to specific computers and operating systems that may not be interoperable with the service provider's database and computer system. Also, while computer and telecommunication systems are becoming increasing powerful, there are still serious computational and transmission limits that constrain the type of information the user interface can convey to the viewer at any given time; this is especially true for databases which will be accessed by thousands of users simultaneously. Limited bandwidth and transmission speeds limit many viewer interfaces to simple text driven interfaces, that suffer from the above described problems.
Finally, conventional viewer interfaces are generally designed to offer the products or services of a single service provider, and thus offer little flexibility to accommodate multiple, potentially competitive providers. Conventional interfaces do not offer a usage model that can be used to develop fee structures based on the usage patterns of users. While users may use a given interface in a particular manner, accessing certain records or categories more frequently than others, conventional databases do not lend themselves to a model of use that can determine relative pricing for "placing" records at various points in the database.
In addition, because conventional databases are designed primarily around one service provider's data, the interfaces are typically specifically adapted to search through the provider's database and its internal data structures. Accordingly, because of the integration of the data with the interface, there is little flexibility in the interface for accessing database of multiple database vendors having a variety of different underlying databases.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a user interface which overcomes the limitations of existing viewer interfaces. A desirable user interface will enable the viewer to see various levels of the hierarchy at once, so that the viewer can determine if a given category of information is desirable based on actual records in the category, and not merely on a textual or graphic label for the category. Further the user interface should allow direct access to specific records from any number of levels "above" the level to which the record is formally linked. This overcomes the repeated selection problem and the disparities of granularity among data sets, and provides for instantly "flattening" the hierarchical structure of the database. The user interface also should enable viewers to navigate readily throughout the database, providing the above described information, while informing viewers of "where" they are in the database, and how they can return to where they started or from where they most recently came.
A desirable user interface will enable a viewer to determine the contents of any record in a standard fashion, using standard techniques for the heterogeneous data types. In addition, the viewer will be able to rapidly view and compare a plurality of like records when deciding on which record to access. A successful user interface will thus bring the disparate records, or programs, to the viewer, without requiring the viewer to actively search while in a passive viewing state.
It is also desirable for a user interface to make only limited assumptions about the capabilities of input devices available. The user interface should thus be manipulable without requiring hardware that is unlikely to be readily available to the majority of users. Similarly, the user interface should accommodate the resource limitations and communications or processor demands from the rapid searching and display of multimedia data types by multiple users.
Further, it is desirable to provide an interface that can access a number of different databases provided by differing vendors, while offering a common interface and set of operations to the user. This separates the user interface from the underlying design of the databases, and affords the user access to a larger universe of information without the increased need to learn to use multiple interfaces.
Additionally, it is desirable for the user interface to offer a standard arrangement of records to enable business opportunities and advertising sales by the service provider to various database vendors based on the value of given locations within the user interface according to a model of viewer usage. In conjunction with such business opportunities, the interface should allow multiple points of access to the records of a given vendor, thereby allowing those vendors who purchase more locations in the interface to achieve greater visibility to the user. In addition, multiple points of access provide increased efficiencies by reducing redundant data storage.
Finally, a successful user interface will enable its viewers to easily identify and configure their own data sets for easy access to frequently used records. The user interface should allow configuration in a manner that is entirely consistent with the methods of use provided by the interface, thereby reducing the burden on the viewer in learning a variety of distinct operations, and encouraging customization by casual or more passive users.